Hating your job is a favorite American pastime. In fact, one recent survey found that four out of five working Americans were dissatisfied with their jobs. It's a misery that knows no boundaries. No age, race or group is exempt. It doesn't matter if you're a college graduate or a high school dropout. A man or a woman. A doctor, a manager or a grocery-store clerk. Too many employees aren't having much fun.
But whether your complaint is a bad boss, too much bureaucracy, office politics, boring work or all of the above, you don't have to suffer in silence (or not so silently). You can take steps to improve your situation, even if you need to stay put-at least for now.
Once you begin intervening on your own behalf, you'll start feeling less like a victim of circumstance and more like a professional with influence and control over your own destiny.
Office politics are about power and competition. Making them work for-rather than against-you takes a healthy dose of self-assertion and adaptability.
When German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Join power with love," he wasn't talking about sleeping your way to the top. He meant using power to do good.
Rather than eschew power (because you associate it with violence), you should seek it out and embrace it. After all, isn't it better for someone like you to have the power to do good? Or would you rather leave it in the hands of all those greedy, unethical people you detest? Just because you dislike the connivers' methods doesn't mean you have to let them win.
The following strategies should help you move your thinking in the right direction:
Strategy 1: Build Positive Relationships
Positive office politics isn't only about mending fences with workplace enemies. It also involves creating alliances with people who can help you.
To increase your feeling of belonging and develop closer relationships within your company, consider taking some of the following steps:
- Sign up for courses that will improve your communication, team play and leadership skills. Then try out what you learn on the people who make your life most miser-able. Practice until you get it right.
- Seek out assignments that enable you to work with a variety of colleagues, rather than the same old few you always get stuck with. This will improve your people skills, broaden your visibility and revitalize your work-day. "Even if you're still working in the same company, it can be very energizing to work with new people," says Anderson.
- Request assignments with people you genuinely like. After hanging out with them awhile, you're sure to feel better about yourself and your company.
- Volunteer for a committee that's working on an interesting issue or project so you can develop an internal community of colleagues with shared interests and values.
- When you have the time and energy, pitch in to help others who are on "job overload." You'll build a reputation as a team player, and develop a supportive network to help you out should the favor ever need to be returned.
- Give credit where credit is due. Rather than try to steal the limelight for yourself, share it with others. People will feel better about working for and with you.
- Be on the lookout for little ways you can foster cooperation instead of conflict. When others sense your attitude, they may mellow, too.
- Don't harbor grudges. They build ill will and give you ulcers. Chronic anger is a symptom of a serious emotional problem. It has a way of catching up with people who hold onto it too long.
Hate is not a productive emotion. It clouds your vision, distorts your judgment and makes you resent everything and everyone. Hatred kills the spirit and paralyzes you with bitterness. A prominent psychiatrist once commented: "Some of the most self-destructive acts take place in the name of revenge."
Consider, for example, a compensation and benefits manager who was furious with her boss, the senior VP of human resources, for "playing favorites" with another manager. The senior VP vehemently denied this was the case, but she refused to believe him. Instead, she went behind his back-and over his head-to complain about him. Because of the man's outstanding reputation with his superiors, all she managed to do was call attention to the conflict and soil her own standing in the company.
When your emotions are out of control at work, it's always a good idea to take some time to cool down before trying to resolve whatever's bugging you. Accusations made in anger are usually unprofessional, inappropriate and counterproductive. Once said, they can never be taken back and are seldom forgotten. In the heat of the moment, strong feelings can convert small flare-ups into enduring animosities that can destroy a career.
Rather than go into an emotional tailspin, try (if possible) to develop more of a rational problem-solving approach. For ex-ample, the senior VP who'd supposedly been giving preferential treatment realized that the problem was destroying his division's morale. To remedy the situation, he hired a consultant to work with his group to develop better communication and team skills.
Strategy 3: Take Responsibility for Your Own Happiness
If you want to be happier at work, you have to accept responsibility for your own happiness.
How?
By knowing what you can and can't change.
This means evaluating the sources of your dissatisfaction to determine where you can expand your sphere of influence. Often, you can do more than you realize. Since unhappiness (like happiness) is a feeling rather than an objective state of being, you can almost always improve your satisfaction level just by thinking different thoughts. Instead of seeing what's wrong and bad all the time, train your eye to see the positive aspects of a person or situation. Even if the facts never change, you'll feel better for the effort.
Knowing what you can change and how to do so is an important key to career satisfaction. On the flip side, it also helps to know what things lie outside your sphere of influence and accept that reality, too.
Strategy 4: Don't Confuse Your Job with Your Life
You may not like your job, but it doesn't have to ruin your life. Even if you aren't free to leave, you can always find ways to improve your situation.
Sometimes, the only thing you can really change is your attitude. You may have to work hard, on occasion, to maintain a sense of humor. But have some fun, even if you don't always feel like laughing. By lightening things up, you make your workday more enjoyable. And when the 9-to-5 part of your life goes more smoothly, it tends to make your night life better, too.
Strategy 5: Have a Plan to Get Out
If you hate your job, you should develop a blueprint for leaving, even if you can't implement it immediately. When you know you're actively engaged in creating alternatives, you can put your current situation into a larger context that makes it more tolerable.
"It helps to know that even though you aren't happy now, you won't have to be unhappy forever," says Laurie Anderson. "It's just a question of negotiating the timing."
